Rural life

I haven't had a chance yet to stop at a roadside soda high up in the hills yet. I keep meaning to but I sense a slight reluctance from the other three occupants in the car.....well the children. 'Her indoors' is much more adventurous. I'm baffled by how people make a living in such remote locations. I know it must be agricultural small holdings and probably pineapples, coffee and sugar cane; some chickens, goats and the odd cow or two perhaps but it seems a pretty tough life. Yet through every village we pass locals smile and occasionally wave. Small children bounce about, always seeming to be laughing; women have time to stop and chat along the roadside, with much laughter, hand waving and affection for one another. It seems idyllic but clearly must be a struggle, or perhaps it isn't? Maybe these Costa Ricans have it right; they live with what they have; make good use of what they have got. Take time to enjoy each others company and value each others skills and qualities. Maybe we have it all wrong in our society?

Each small home is well kept with often colour walls and coloured tin roofs. Gardens are well tended, front porches  and yards swept. The isn't any rubbish, no derelict machinery in yards. Washing dries on lines or on the roofs of the buildings. Each home has a pile of chopped timbers. Colourful flowers grow, entwined in the wire fences that surround properties. It sounds an idyllic picture and to some extents it appears to be one.............but the geographer within me keeps niggling away..............is it?
The bigger villages have small schools.....a few buildings with high up slatted open windows. Some in the larger villages have some playground swings or climbing frames but not all. Each school has its own name......'Acapulco School' has been our favourite....a school smaller than our house, set on the inside bend of a tight mountain bend with simply stunning views across the valleys and down to the Nicoya peninsula and the Pacific Ocean.